Couple from West Michigan return to Myanmar to battle misery from cyclone

Courtesy PhotoGrand Rapids native Curt Bradner is shown designing machinery in Myanmar, where he and his wife, Cathy, help direct a nonprofit enterprise that teams with UNICEF.

AP PhotoHomeless children whose homes were destroyed in last weekend's devastating cyclone take shelter Thursday in a monastery in Kaw Hmu village, about 62 miles southwest of Yangon, Myanmar.

Many resort to prayer.

Others shake their heads in disbelief.

Untold numbers are writing checks.

But for West Michigan natives Curt and Cathy Bradner, the horrible tragedy that has befallen a country half a world away is a frantic call to hurry back to their other home.

The Bradners -- both graduated high school in 1973, he from Grand Rapids Creston and she as Cathy Ott from Grand Haven -- keep a residence in Oregon these days.

But they spend most of their time in Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country where corpses are floating in rivers, power is virtually nonexistent and countless numbers have no food or water.

The Bradners on Wednesday evening boarded a commercial flight from Eugene, Ore., that about 30 hours later would put them in the middle of the planet's latest catastrophe -- a killer cyclone responsible for at least 22,000 deaths and the homelessness of perhaps 1 million.

"Last night was the first time that anybody could actually get a phone call through to us," Curt said of colleagues in Myanmar, who reached them Tuesday evening, "and there are ground counts putting the death toll closer to 100,000."

Curt, 53, and Cathy, 52, help direct Thirst-Aid, a nonprofit enterprise that teams with UNICEF to produce ceramic water filters at a facility they built in Myanmar.

The couple's decision to live and work in that country -- formerly Burma -- is a story in itself.

After high school, they both attended Western Michigan University, where they met and became engaged. Together for 33 years, they first made a go of it in Colorado, where Curt's background in mechanical engineering helped him develop a successful business that produced water filters.

They sold the enterprise in 1998 and ventured to Europe to start bicycling around the world on a tandem, pulling a trailer.

In 1999 in Thailand, they stopped to visit refugee children.

They stayed five years.

"We were really suckers for a cause," Curt told me, noting he and Cathy's hearts found a home with kids living in an orphanage.

Volunteering there, they interested the community in vocational training programs, which included building ceramic water filters.

They were able to provide 6,000 filters when the tsunami hit Thailand in 2004.

They moved to Myanmar in 2006 and, in each of the past two years, Thirst-Aid produced 10,000 filters, depending largely on donations to sustain the project. Flying home to Eugene, in fact, is done as much to jump-start funding as it is to visit their two grown daughters.

"Each unit costs $15 in U.S. dollars to make," says Curt, emphasizing that one filter can supply a family with fresh water. A donation of $100 buys enough filters to accommodate a school, and a gift of $1,000 supplies enough for a village.

"Right now," he said, "we could really use a lot of $1,000 donations."

Curt said based on first-hand observations from people at Thirst-Aid in the hard-hit capital city of Yangon, the devastation is other-worldly.

"The image portrayed to me is that of a city that looks as though it's been opened with a can opener," he said. "Roofs are torn off everything. Any large plate-glass windows have been blown out."

Courtesy PhotoCathy Bradner is shown working with clay used in ceramic water filters made by Thirst-Aid in Myanmar.

Less than 2 percent of the area has electricity, and "there is no propane to be had," prompting residents to "chop down trees to cook food."

Most people are poor and live in grass huts that largely were obliterated by the cyclone.

"And it's the rainy season," Curt said. "With no roof over their heads, people will die of exposure."

There also is immediate need for mosquito netting, medical supplies, plastic buckets and tarps -- all problematic in a country ruled by a military regime challenged late last year by anti-government demonstrators.

Recalling how people reacted after the 2004 tsunami, Curt said he fully expects to see, "a whole bunch of people walking around like they've been hit in the head with a baseball bat ... people looking for direction."

Even before heading back, Curt and Cathy arranged for delivery of about 300,000 "aquatabs" that help treat small amounts of drinking water with chlorine.

Significantly, the Bradners are better positioned to bypass military scrutiny and enter and exit Myanmar with supplies because they qualify for business visas.

"We can get goods into the country where others cannot," Curt said.

And they are definitely in a hurry to return. In a country where the average wage is 73 cents a day and the price of water is reportedly 50 cents a liter, Curt and Cathy are eager to step up production and distribution of their filters.

Curt's sister, Kris VandenBerg, remains in the Grand Rapids area and is in constant contact with her brother and sister-in-law.

"They do not profit from the work that they do," she says. "They are truly 'do-gooders' in the truest sense of the phrase.

"I think about them every time I turn on my faucet and am rewarded with a glass of clean, safe water."